The Hague
Dutch precision--Shaping hands--Nature under control--Willow
_v_. Neptune--The lost star--S'Gravenhage--The
Mauritshuis--Rembrandt--The "School of Anatomy"--Jan
Vermeer of Delft--The frontispiece--Other pictures--The
Municipal Museum--Baron Steengracht's collection--The Mesdag
treasures--French romantics at The Hague--The Binnenhof--John
van Olden Barneveldt--Man's cruelty to man--The churches--The
fish market and first taste of Scheveningen--A crowded
street--Holland's reading--The Bosch--The club--The House
in the Wood--Mr. "Secretary" Prior--Old marvels--Howell the
receptive and Coryate the credulous.
Although often akin to the English, the Dutch character differs from it
very noticeably in the matter of precision. The Englishman has little
precision; the Dutchman has too much. He bends everything to it. He has
at its dictates divided his whole country into parellelograms. Even the
rushes in his swamps are governed by the same law. The carelessness
of nature is offensive to him; he moulds and trains on every hand,
as one may see on the railway journey to The Hague. Trees he endures
only so long as they are obedient and equidistant: he likes them
in avenues or straight lines; if they grow otherwise they must be
pollarded. It is true that he has not touched the Bosch, at The Hague;
but since his hands perforce have been kept off its trees, he has run
scores of formal straight well-gravelled paths beneath their branches.
This passion for interference grew perhaps from exultation upon
successful dealings with the sea. A man who by his own efforts can
live in security below sea-level, and graze cattle luxuriantly where
sand and pebbles and salt once made a desert, has perhaps the right
to feel that everything in nature would be the better for a little
manipulation. Eyes accustomed to the careless profusion that one may
see even on a short railway journey in England are shocked to find
nature so tractable both in land and water.
The Dutchman's pruning, however, is not done solely for the
satisfaction of exerting control. These millions of pollarded
willows which one sees from the line have a deeper significance than
might ever be guessed at: it is they that are keeping out Holland's
ancient enemy, the sea. In other words, a great part of the basis of
the strength of the dykes is imparted by interwoven willow boughs,
which are constantly being renewed under the vigilant eyes of the dyke
inspectors. For the rest, the inveterate trimming of trees must be a
comparatively modern custom, for many of the old landscapes depict
careless foliage--Koninck's particularly. And look, for instance,
at that wonderful picture--perhaps the finest landscape in Dutch
art--Rembrandt's etching "The Three Trees". There is nothing in North
Holland to-day as unstudied as that. I doubt if you could now find
three trees of such individuality and courage.
When I was first at The Hague, seven years ago, I stayed not, as on
my last visit, at the Oude Doelen, which is the most comfortable
hotel in Holland, but at a more retired hostelry. It was spacious
and antiquated, with large empty rooms, and cool passages, and an
air of decay over all. Servants one never saw, nor any waiter proper;
one's every need was carried out by a very small and very enthusiastic
boy. "Is the hroom good, sare?" he asked, as he flung open the door of
the bedroom with a superb flourish. "Is the sham good, sare?" he asked
as he laid a pot of preserve on the table. He was the landlady's son
or grandson, and a better boy never lived, but his part, for all his
spirit and good humour, was a tragic one. For the greatest misfortune
that can come upon an hotel-keeper had crushed this house: Bædeker
had excised their star!
The landlady moved in the background, a disconsolate figure with
a grievance. She waylaid us as we went out and as we came in. Was
it not a good hotel? Was not the management excellent? Had we
any complaints? And yet--see--once she had a star and now it was
gone. Could we not help to regain it? Here was the secret of the
grandson's splendid zeal. The little fellow was fighting to hitch
the old hotel to a star once more, as Emerson had bidden.
Alas, it was in vain; for that was seven years ago, and I see that
Bædeker still withholds the distinction. What a variety of misfortune
this little world holds! While some of us are indulging our right
to be unhappy over a thousand trivial matters, such as illness and
disillusion, there are inn-keepers on the Continent who are staggering
and struggling under real blows.
I wondered if it were better to have had a star and lost it, than
never to have had a star at all. But I did not ask. The old lady's
grief was too poignant, her mind too practical, for such questions.
S'Gravenhage or Den Haag, or The Hague as we call it, being the seat
of the court, is at once the most civilised and most expensive of the
Dutch cities. But it is not conspicuously Dutch, and is interesting
rather for its pictures and for its score of historic buildings about
the Vyver than for itself. Take away the Vyver and its surrounding
treasures and a not very noteworthy European town would remain.
And yet to say so hardly does justice to this city, for it has
a character of its own that renders it unique: cosmopolitan and
elegant; catholic in its tastes; indulgent to strangers; aristocratic;
well-spaced and well built; above all things, bland.
And the Vyver is a jewel set in its midst, beautiful by day and
beautiful by night, with fascinating reflections in it at both times,
and a special gift for the transmission of bells in a country where
bells are really honoured. On its north side is the Vyverberg with
pleasant trees and a row of spacious and perfectly self-composed
white houses, one of which, at the corner, has in its windows the
most exquisite long lace curtains in this country of exquisite long
lace curtains.
On the south side are the Binnenhof and the Mauritshuis--in the
Mauritshuis being the finest works of the two greatest Dutch painters,
Rembrandt of the Rhine and Vermeer of Delft. It is largely by these
possessions that The Hague holds her place as a city of distinction.
Rembrandt's "School of Anatomy" and Paul Potter's "Bull" are the
two pictures by which every one knows the Mauritshuis collection;
and it is the bull which maintains the steadier and larger crowd. But
it is not a work that interests me. My pictures in the Mauritshuis
are above all the "School of Anatomy," Vermeer's "View of Delft,"
his head of a young girl, and the Jan Steens. We have magnificent
Rembrandts in London; but we have nothing quite on the same plane
of interest or mastery as the "School of Anatomy ". Holland has not
always retained her artists' best, but in the case of Rembrandt and
Hals, Jan Steen and Vermeer, she has made no mistakes. Rembrandt's
"School of Anatomy," his "Night Watch," and his portrait of Elizabeth
Bas are all in Holland. I can remember no landscape in Holland in the
manner of that in our National Gallery in which, in conformity with the
taste of certain picture buyers, he dropped in an inessential Tobias
and Angel; but for the finest examples of his distinction and power
as a painter of men one must go to The Hague and Amsterdam. In the
Mauritshuis are sixteen Rembrandts, including the portrait of himself
in a steel casque, and (one of my favourites) the head of the demure
nun-like and yet merry-hearted Dutch maiden reproduced opposite the
next page, which it is impossible to forget and yet difficult, when
not looking at it, to recall with any distinctness--as is so often
the case with one's friends in real life.
If any large number of visitors to Holland taken at random were asked
to name the best of Rembrandt's pictures they would probably say the
"Night Watch". But I fancy that a finer quality went to the making
of the "School of Anatomy". I fancy that the "School of Anatomy"
is the greatest work of art produced by northern Europe.
To Jan Steen and his work we come later, in the chapter on Leyden,
but of Vermeer, whom we saw at Delft, this is one place to speak. Of
the "View of Delft" there is a reproduction opposite page 58, yet
it can convey but little suggestion of its beauty. In the case of
the picture opposite page 2 there is only a loss of colour: a great
part of its beauty is retained; but the "View of Delft" must be
seen in the original before one can speak of it at all. Its appeal
is more intimate than any other old Dutch landscape that I know. I
say old, because modern painters have a few scenes which soothe
one hardly less--two or three of Matthew Maris's, and Mauve's again
and again. But before Maris and Mauve came the Barbizon influence;
whereas Vermeer had no predecessors, he had to find his delicate
path for himself. To explain the charm of the "View of Delft" is
beyond my power; but there it is. Before Rembrandt one stands awed,
in the presence of an ancient giant; before Vermeer one rejoices,
as in the presence of a friend and contemporary.
The head of a young girl, from the same brush, which was left to the
nation as recently as 1903, is reproduced opposite page 2. To me it
is one of the most beautiful things in Holland. It is, however, in no
sense Dutch: the girl is not Dutch, the painting is Dutch only because
it is the work of a Dutchman. No other Dutch painter could compass
such liquid clarity, such cool surfaces. Indeed, none of the others
seem to have tried: a different ideal was theirs. Apart, however,
from the question of technique, upon which I am not entitled to speak,
the picture has to me human interest beyond description. There is a
winning charm in this simple Eastern face that no words of mine can
express. All that is hard in the Dutch nature dissolves beneath her
reluctant smile. She symbolises the fairest and sweetest things in
the Eleven Provinces. She makes Holland sacred ground.
Vermeer, although always a superb craftsman, was not always
inspired. In the next room to the "View of Delft" and the girl's
head is his "New Testament Allegory," a picture which I think I
dislike more than any other, so false seems to me its sentiment and
so unattractive its character. Yet the sheer painting of it is little
short of miraculous.
Among other Dutch pictures in the Mauritshuis which I should like
to mention for their particular charm are Gerard Dou's "Young
Housekeeper," to which we come in the chapter on Leyden's painters;
Ostade's "Proposal," one of the pleasantest pictures which he ever
signed; Ruisdael's "View of Haarlem" and Terburg's portraits. I single
these out. But when I think of the marvels of painting that remain,
of which I have said not a word, I am only too conscious of the
uselessness of such a list. Were this a guide-book I should say more,
mentioning also the work of the other schools, not Dutch, notably
a head of Jane Seymour by Holbein, a Velasquez, and so forth. But I
must not.
After the Mauritshuis, the Municipal Museum, which also overlooks the
Vyver's placid surface, is a dull place except for the antiquary. In
its old views of the city, which are among its most interesting
possessions, the evolution of the neighbouring Doelen hotel may be
studied by the curious--from its earliest days, when it was a shooting
gallery, to its present state of spaciousness and repute, basking
in its prosperity and cherishing the proud knowledge that Peter the
Great has slept under its hospitable roof, and that it was there that
the Russian delegate resided when, in 1900, the Czar convoked at The
Hague the Peace Conference which he was the first to break.
In one room of the Municipal Museum are the palette and easel of
Johannes Bosboom, Holland's great painter of churches. His last
unfinished sketch rests on the easel. No collection of modern Dutch
art is complete without a sombre study of Gothic arches by this
great artist. All his work is good, but I saw nothing better than
the water-colour drawing in the Boymans Museum at Rotterdam, which
is reproduced opposite page 132.
At The Hague one may also see, whenever the family is not in
residence, the collection of Baron Steengracht in one of the ample
white mansions on the Vyverberg. Most interesting of the pictures to
me are Jan Steen's family group, which, however, for all its wonderful
drawing, is not in his most interesting manner; a very deft Metsu,
"The Sick Child"; a horse by Albert Cuyp; a characteristic group of
convivial artists by Adrian Brouwer, including Hals, Ostade, Jan Steen
and the painter himself; and--best of all--Terburg's wholly charming
"Toilette," an old woman combing the head of a child.
Quite recently the Mesdag Museum has been added to the public
exhibitions of The Hague. This is the house of Hendriks Willem Mesdag,
the artist, which, with all its Barbizon treasures, with noble
generosity he has made over to the nation in his lifetime. Mesdag,
who is himself one of the first of living Dutch painters, has been
acquiring pictures for many years, and his collection, by representing
in every example the taste of a single connoisseur, has thus the
additional interest of unity. Mesdag's own paintings are mostly of
the sea--a grey sea with a few fishing boats, very true, very quiet
and simple. How many times he and James Maris painted Scheveningen's
shore probably no one could compute. His best-known work is probably
the poster advertising the Harwich and Hook-of-Holland route, in which
the two ports are joined by a chain crossing a grey sea--best known,
because every one has seen this picture: it is at all the stations;
although few, I imagine, have connected with it the name and fame of
the Dutch artist and patron of the arts.
In the description of the Ryks collection at Amsterdam I shall say
something about the pleasure of choosing one's own particular picture
from a gallery. It was amusing to indulge the same humour in the Mesdag
Museum: perhaps even more so than at the Ryks, for one is certain
that by no means could Vermeer's little picture of "The Reader,"--the
woman in the blue jacket--for example, be abstracted from those
well-guarded walls, whereas it is just conceivable that one could
select from these crowded little Mesdag rooms something that might
not be missed. I hesitated long between a delicate Matthew Maris, the
very essence of quietude, in which a girl stands by a stove, cooking;
Delacroix's wonderful study of dead horses in the desert; a perfect
Diaz (No. 114), an old woman in a red shawl by a pool in a wood, with
its miracle of lighting; a tender little Daumier, that rare master;
a Segantini drenched in sincerity and pity; and a bridge at evening
(No. 127) by Jules Dupré. All these are small and could be slipped
under the overcoat with the greatest ease!
Having made up my mind I returned to each and lost all my decision. I
decided again, and again uncertainty conquered. And then I made a
final examination, and chose No. 64--a totally new choice--a little
lovely Corot, depicting a stream, two women, much essential greenness,
and that liquid light of which Corot had the secret.
But I am not sure that the Diaz (who began by being an old master)
is not the more exquisite picture.
For the rest, there are other Corots, among them one of his black night
pieces; a little village scene by Troyon; some apples by Courbet,
in the grandest manner surely in which apples ever were painted; a
Monticelli; a scene of hills by Georges Michel which makes one wish
he had painted the Sussex Downs; a beautiful chalk drawing by Millet;
some vast silent Daubignys; a few Mauves; a very interesting early
James Maris in the manner of Peter de Hooch, and a superb later James
Maris--wet sand and a windy sky.
The flower of the French romantic school is represented here, brought
together by a collector with a sure eye. No visitor to The Hague who
cares anything for painting should miss it; and indeed no visitor
who cares nothing for painting should miss it, for it may lure him
to wiser ways.
The Binnenhof is a mass of medieval and later buildings extending
along the south side of the Vyver, which was indeed once a part of
its moat. The most attractive view of it is from the north side of the
Vyver, with the long broken line of roof and gable and turret reflected
in the water. The nucleus of the Binnenhof was the castle or palace of
William II., Count of Holland in the thirteenth century--also Emperor
of Germany and father of Florence V., who built the great hall of the
knights (into which, however, one may penetrate only on Thursdays),
and whose tomb we shall see in Alkmaar church. The Stadtholders made
the Binnenhof their headquarters; but the present Royal Palace is half
a mile north-west of it. Other buildings have been added from time to
time, and the trams are now allowed to rush through with their bells
jangling the while. The desecration is not so glaring as at Utrecht,
but it seems thoroughly wrong--as though we were to permit a line to
traverse Dean's Yard at Westminster. A more appropriate sanction is
that extended to one or two dealers in old books and prints who have
their stalls in the Binnenhof's cloisters.
It was in the Binnenhof that the scaffold stood on which John van
Barneveldt was beheaded in 1619, the almost inevitable result of his
long period of differences with the Stadtholder Maurice, son of William
the Silent. His arrest, as we have seen, followed the Synod of Dort,
Grotius being also removed by force. Barneveldt's imprisonment,
trial and execution resemble Spanish methods of injustice more
closely than one likes to think. I quote Davies' fine account of
the old statesman's last moments: "Leaning on his staff, and with
his servant on the other side to support his steps, grown feeble
with age, Barneveldt walked composedly to the place of execution,
prepared before the great saloon of the court-house. If, as it is not
improbable, at the approach of death in the midst of life and health,
when the intellect is in full vigour, and every nerve, sense and fibre
is strung to the highest pitch of tension, a foretaste of that which
is to come is sometimes given to man, and his over-wrought mind is
enabled to grasp at one single effort the events of his whole past
life--if, at this moment and on this spot, where Barneveldt was now
to suffer a felon's death,--where he had first held out his fostering
hand to the infant republic, and infused into it strength and vigour
to conquer the giant of Europe,--where he had been humbly sued for
peace by the oppressor of his country,--where the ambassadors of the
most powerful sovereigns had vied with each other in soliciting his
favour and support,--where the wise, the eloquent, and the learned,
had bowed in deference to his master-spirit;--if, at this moment, the
memory of all his long and glorious career on earth flashed upon his
mind in fearful contrast to the present reality, with how deep feeling
must he have uttered the exclamation as he ascended the scaffold,
'Oh God! what then is man?'
"Here he was compelled to suffer the last petty indignity that man
could heap upon him. Aged and infirm as he was, neither stool nor
cushion had been provided to mitigate the sense of bodily weakness as
he performed the last duties of mortal life; and kneeling down on the
bare boards, he was supported by his servant, while the minister,
John Lamotius, delivered a prayer. When prepared for the block,
he turned to the spectators and said, with a loud and firm voice,
'My friends, believe not that I am a traitor. I have lived a good
patriot, and such I die.' He then, with his own hands, drew his cap
over his eyes, and bidding the executioner 'be quick,' bowed his
venerable head to the stroke.
"The populace, from various feelings, some inspired by hatred, some
by affection, dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, or carried
away morsels of the blood-stained wood and sand; a few were even
found to _sell_ these as relics. The body and head were laid in a
coffin and buried decently, but with little ceremony, at the court
church of the Hague.
"The States of Holland rendered to his memory that justice which he
had been denied while living, by the words in which they recorded his
death. After stating the time and manner of it, and his long period
of service to his country, the resolution concludes, 'a man of great
activity, diligence, memory, and conduct; yea, remarkable in every
respect. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall;
and may God be merciful to his soul.'"
A very beautiful story is told of Barneveldt's widow. Her son plotting
to avenge his father and crush the Stadtholder was discovered and
imprisoned. His mother visited Maurice to ask his pardon. "Why," said
he, "how is this--you value your son more than your husband! You did
not ask pardon for him." "No," said Barneveldt's widow; "I did not
ask pardon for my husband, because he was innocent; I ask pardon for
my son, because he is guilty."
Prince Maurice never recovered from the error--to put for the moment
no worse epithet to it--of the death of Barneveldt. He had killed
his best counsellor; thenceforward his power diminished; and with
every rebuff he who had abandoned his first adviser complained
that God had abandoned him. Davies sums up the case thus: "The
escutcheon of Maurice is bright with the record of many a deed of
glory; the fabric of his country's greatness raised by his father,
strengthened and beautified by himself; her armies created the masters
of military science to the civilized world; her States the centre and
mainspring of its negotiations; her proud foe reduced to sue humbly
at her feet. But there is one dark, deep stain on which the eye of
posterity, unheeding the surrounding radiance, is constantly fixed:
it is the blood of Barneveldt."
The Binnenhof leads to the Buitenhof, a large open space, the old
gateway to which is the Gevangenpoort prison--scene of another shameful
deed in the history of Holland, the death of John and Cornelius
de Witt. The massacre occurred two hundred and thirty-three years
ago--in 1672. Cornelius de Witt was wrongfully accused of an attempt
to procure the assassination of the Stadtholder, William III. To him,
in his cell in the Gevangenpoort, came, on 22nd August, John de Witt,
late Grand Pensionary, brought hither by a bogus message.
I quote from Davies, who elsewhere makes it clear that (as Dumas says)
William III was privy to the crime: "His friends, fearful of some
treachery, besought him to pause and inquire into the truth of the
summons before he obeyed it; and his only daughter threw herself
at his feet, and implored him with floods of tears not to risk
unnecessarily a life so precious. But his anxiety for his brother,
with whom he had ever lived on terms of the tenderest affection,
proved stronger than their remonstrances; and setting out on foot,
attended by his servant and two secretaries, he hastened to the
prison. On seeing him, Cornelius de Witt exclaimed in astonishment,
'My brother, what do you here?' 'Did you not then send for me?' he
asked; and receiving an answer in the negative, 'Then,' rejoined he,
'we are lost'.
"During this time one of the judges sent for Tichelaar, and suggested
to him that he should incite the people not to suffer a villain
who had intended to murder the Prince to go unpunished. True to his
instructions, the miscreant spread among the crowd collected before
the prison doors the report, that the torture inflicted on Cornelius
de Witt was a mere pretence, and that he had only escaped the death
he deserved because the judges favoured his crime. Then, entering the
gaol, he presented himself at the window, and exclaimed to the crowd
below, 'The dog and his brother are going out of prison! Now is your
time; revenge yourselves on these two knaves, and then on thirty more,
their accomplices.'
"The populace received his address with shouts and cries of 'To arms,
to arms! Treason, treason!' and pressed in a still denser crowd towards
the prison door. The States of Holland, immediately on information of
the tumult, sent three troops of cavalry, in garrison at the Hague,
for the protection of the gaol, and called out to arms six companies
of burgher guards. But in the latter they only added fresh hosts to
the enemies of the unfortunate captives. One company in especial,
called the 'Company of the Blue Flag,' was animated with a spirit of
deadly vengeance against them; its leader, Verhoef, having that morning
loaded his musket with a determination either to kill the De Witts
or perish in the attempt. They pressed forward towards the prison,
but were driven back by the determined appearance of the cavalry,
commanded by the Count de Tilly.
"So long as these troops remained, it was evident that the fell purpose
of the rioters was impracticable. Accordingly, a report was raised that
a band of peasants and sailors was coming to plunder The Hague; and
two captains of the burgher guards took occasion from thence to demand
of the Council of State, that the soldiers should be drawn off from
their station, in order to protect the houses from pillage. First a
verbal order, and on Tilly's refusing obedience to such, a written one,
was sent, commanding him to divide his troops into four detachments,
and post them upon the bridges leading into the town. 'I shall obey,'
said he, as he perused the mandate; 'but it is the death-warrant of
the brothers.'
"His anticipations were too soon realized. No sooner had he departed
than the rioters were supplied by some of those mysterious agents who
were actively employed throughout the whole of these transactions, with
wine, brandy, and other incitements to inflame their already maddening
fury. Led on by Verhoef and one Van Bankhem, a sheriff of The Hague,
they assailed the prison door with axes and sledge-hammers, threatening
to kill all the inmates if it were not instantly opened. Terrified,
or corrupted, the gaoler obeyed their behests. On gaining admittance
they rushed to an upper room, where they found their victims,
who had throughout the whole of the tumult maintained the greatest
composure. The bailiff, reduced to a state of extreme debility by the
torture, was reclining on his bed; his brother was seated near him,
reading the Bible. They forced them to rise and follow them 'to the
place,' as they said, 'where criminals were executed'.
"Having taken a tender leave of each other, they began to descend the
stairs, Cornelius de Witt leaning on his brother for support. They had
not advanced above two or three paces when a heavy blow on the head
from behind precipitated the former to the bottom. He was then dragged
a short distance towards the street, trampled under foot, and beaten
to death. Meanwhile, John de Witt, after receiving a severe wound
on the head with the butt-end of a musket, was brought by Verhoef,
bleeding and bare-headed, before the furious multitude. One Van
Soenen immediately thrust a pike into his face, while another of the
miscreants shot him in the neck, exclaiming as he fell, 'There goes
down the Perpetual Edict'. Raising himself on his knees, the sufferer
lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven in deep and earnest prayer. At
that moment, one Verhagen struck him with his musket. Hundreds followed
his example, and the cruel massacre was completed.
"Barbarities too dreadful for utterance or contemplation, all that
phrenzied passion or brutal ferocity could suggest, were perpetrated
on the bodies of these noble and virtuous citizens; nor was it till
night put an end to the butchery, that their friends were permitted
to convey their mangled remains to a secret and obscure tomb."
In the Nieuwe Kerk at The Hague the tomb of the De Witts may be seen
and honoured.
The Gevangenpoort is well worth a visit. One passes tortuously from
cell to cell--most of them associated with some famous breaker of
the laws of God or man, principally of man. Here you may see a stone
hollowed by the drops of water that plashed from the prisoner's head,
on which they were timed to fall at intervals of a few seconds--a
form of torture imported, I believe, from China, and after some hours
ending inevitably in madness and death. Beside such a refinement
the rack is a mere trifle and the Gevangenpoort's branding irons and
thumb screws become only toys. A block, retaining the cuts made by the
axe after it had crashed through the offending neck, is also shown;
and the names of prisoners written in their blood on the walls may
be traced. The building is a monument in stone of what man can do to
man in the name of justice.
I referred just now to the Nieuwe Kerk, the resting-place of the
De Witts. There lies also their contemporary, Spinoza, whose home
at Rynsburg we shall pass on our way to Katwyk from Leyden. His
house at The Hague still stands--near his statue. The Groote Kerk
is older; but neither church is particularly interesting. From the
Groote Kerk's tower one may, however, see a vast deal of country
around The Hague--a landscape containing much greenery--and in the
west the architectural monsters of Scheveningen only too visible. We
shall reach Scheveningen in the next chapter, but while at The Hague
it is amusing to visit the fish market in order to have sight of the
good women of that town clustered about the stalls in their peculiar
costume. They are Scheveningen's best. The adjoining stadhuis is a
very interesting example of Dutch architecture.
The Hague has excellent shops, and one street--the Lange Pooten--more
crowded in the evening, particularly on Sunday evening, than any I
know. Every Dutch town has certain crowded streets in the evening,
because to walk up and down after dinner is the national form of
recreation. There are in the large cities a few theatres and music
halls, and in the smaller, concerts in the summer; but for the most
part the streets and the cafés are the great attraction. Each town has
one street above all others which is frequented in this way. At The
Hague it is the Lange Pooten, running into Spui Straat; at Amsterdam
it is Kalverstraat.
Dutch shops are not very interesting, and the book-shops in
particular are a disappointment. This is because it is not a reading
people. The newspapers are sound and practical before all things:
business before pleasure is their motto; and native literature is
not fostered. Publishers who bring out new Dutch books usually do
so on the old subscription plan. But the book-shops testify to the
popularity of translations from other nations and also of foreign
books in the original. The latest French and German fiction is always
obtainable. Among translations from the English in 1904 I noticed a
considerable number of copies of the Sherlock Holmes tales and also of
two or three of Miss Corelli's works. These for adults; for boys the
reading _par excellence_ was a serial romance, in weekly or monthly
parts, entitled "De Wilsons en de Ring des Doods of het Spoor van
pen Diamenten". The Wilsons, I gather, have been having a great run
in Holland. A lurid scene in Maiden Lane was on the cover. Another
story which seemed to be popular had the engaging title "Beleaguered
by Jaguars".
The Hague is very proud of the Bosch--the great wood to the east
of the city, with a few deer and many tall and unpollarded trees,
where one may walk and ride or drive very pleasantly.
The Bosch has no restaurant within its boundaries. I mention this in
order to save the reader the mortification of being conducted by a
polite but firm waiter back to the gates of the pavilion in which he
may reasonably have supposed he was as much entitled to order tea as
any of the groups enjoying that beverage at the little tables within
the enclosure, whose happiness had indeed led him to enter it. They
are, however, members of a club, to which he has no more right of
entry than any Dutch stranger would have to the Athenæum.
The Huis ten Bosch, or House in the Wood, which all good travellers
must explore, is at the extreme eastern end of the Bosch, with pleasure
grounds of its own, including a lake where royal skating parties
are held. This very charming royal residence, now only occasionally
occupied, is well worth seeing for its Chinese and Japanese decorations
alone--apart from historical associations and mural paintings. For
mural paintings unless they are very quiet I must confess to caring
nothing, nor does a bed on which a temporal prince breathed his last,
or his first, move me to any degree of interest; but on the walls of
one room of the House in the Wood is some of the most charming Chinese
embroidery I ever saw, while another is decorated in blue and white
of exquisite delicacy. With these gracious schemes of upholstery I
shall always associate the Huis ten Bosch.
At Leyden we shall find traces of Oliver Goldsmith: here at The Hague
one may think of Mat. Prior, who was secretary to our Ambassador for
some years and even wrote a copy of spritely verses on the subject.
THE SECRETARY.
Written at The Hague, 1696.
With labour assiduous due pleasure I mix,
And in one day atone for the bus'ness of six.
In a little Dutch chaise, on a Saturday night,
On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right:
No memoirs to compose, and no post-boy to move,
That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love;
For her, neither visits, nor parties at tea,
Nor the long-winded cant of a dull refugee:
This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine
To good or ill-fortune the third we resign.
Thus scorning the world, and superior to Fate,
I drive in my car in professional state;
So with Phia thro' Athens Pisistratus rode,
Men thought her Minerva, and him a new god.
But why should I stories of Athens rehearse,
Where people knew love, and were partial to verse,
Since none can with justice my pleasures oppose
In Holland half-drownèd in int'rest and prose?
By Greece and past ages what need I be tried
When The Hague and the present are both on my side?
And is it enough for the joys of the day
To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say,
When good Vandergoes and his provident Vrow,
As they gaze on my triumph, do freely allow,
That, search all the province, you'll find no man dar is
So blest as the _Englishen Heer Secretár is_?
Let me close this rambling account of The Hague with a passage from
James Howell, in one of his conspicuously elaborate _Familiar Letters_,
written in 1622, describing some of the odd things to be seen at that
day in or about the Dutch city: "We went afterwards to the _Hague_,
where there are hard by, though in several places, two wonderful things
to be seen, the one of _Art_, the other of _Nature_; that of _Art_ is
a Waggon or Ship, or a monster mixt of both like the _Hippocentaure_
who was half man and half horse; this Engin hath wheels and sails that
will hold above twenty people, and goes with the wind, being drawn
or mov'd by nothing else, and will run, the wind being good, and the
sails hois'd up, above fifteen miles an hour upon the even hard sands:
they say this Invention was found out to entertain _Spinola_ when he
came thither to treat of the last Truce." Upon this wonder, which
I did not see, civilisation has now improved, the wind being but a
captious and untrustworthy servant compared with petrol or steam. None
the less there is still a very rapid wheeled ship at Zandvoort.
But the record of Howell's other wonder is visible still. He continues:
"That wonder of _Nature_ is a Church-monument, where an Earl and
a Lady are engraven with 365 children about them, which were all
delivered at one birth; they were half male, half female; the two
Basons in which they were Christened hang still in the Church, and the
Bishop's Name who did it; and the story of this Miracle, with the year
and the day of the month mentioned, which is not yet 200 years ago;
and the story is this: That the Countess walking about her door after
dinner, there came a Begger-woman with two Children upon her back to
beg alms, the Countess asking whether those children were her own,
she answer'd, she had them both at one birth, and by one Father, who
was her husband. The Countess would not only not give her any alms,
but reviled her bitterly, saying, it was impossible for one man to
get two children at once. The Begger-woman being thus provok'd with
ill words, and without alms, fell to imprecations, that it should
please God to show His judgment upon her, and that she might bear at
one birth as many children as there be days in the year, which she
did before the same year's end, having never born child before."
The legend was naturally popular in a land of large families, and it
was certainly credited without any reservation for many years. In
England the rabbit-breeding woman of Dorking had her adherents
too. What the beggar really wished for the Dutch lady was as many
children at one birth as there were days in the year in which the
conversation occurred--namely three, for the encounter was on January
3rd. Or so I have somewhere read. But it is more amusing to believe in
the greater number, especially as a Dutch author has put it on record
that he saw the children with his own eyes. They were of the size
of shrimps, and were baptised either singly or collectively by Guy,
Bishop of Utrecht. All the boys were named John and all the girls
Elizabeth, They died the same day.
Thomas Coryate of the _Crudities_, who also tells the tale, believed
it implicitly. "This strange history," he says, "will seem incredible
(I suppose) to all readers. But it is so absolutely and undoubtedly
true as nothing in the world more."
And here, hand in hand with Veritas, we leave The Hague.